text: The suggestion of Winogradsky was confirmed nearly 90 years later, when hydrothermal ocean vents were predicted to exist in the 1970s. The hot springs and strange creatures were discovered by Alvin, the world's first deep-sea submersible, in 1977 at the Galapagos Rift. At about the same time, then-graduate student Colleen Cavanaugh proposed chemosynthetic bacteria that oxidize sulfides or elemental sulfur as a mechanism by which tube worms could survive near hydrothermal vents. Cavanaugh later managed to confirm that this was indeed the method by which the worms could thrive, and is generally credited with the discovery of chemosynthesis.
  A 2004 television series hosted by Bill Nye named chemosynthesis as one of the 100 greatest scientific discoveries of all time.